


In the Mind's Eye

by faelan



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: 3x24, Dragons, Dream World, M/M, Metaphysics, Monsters, Season 3, Synchronicity, collective unconscious, divine move, nature of reality, pre slash, story telling, unconscious and conscious minds
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-27
Updated: 2016-06-27
Packaged: 2018-07-18 11:41:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7313854
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/faelan/pseuds/faelan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Tell me a story,” Stiles used to ask his mother. </p><p>“Ages and ages ago, there was a Goddess which created a universe. One verse, one thought, one emotion. And from this verse, from this thought, from this emotion; creation expanded. But there were rules… An order within the chaos, and a chaos within the order…” his mother used to start.</p><p>“I’ll tell you a story,” Stiles says to Derek. He rubs the fingertips of his right hand, all six of them, against the wrinkles in his jeans. Derek blinks up at him, a tired pinched look around his eyes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In the Mind's Eye

“Tell me a story,” Stiles used to ask his mother. 

“Ages and ages ago, there was a Goddess which created a universe. One verse, one thought, one emotion. And from this verse, from this thought, from this emotion; creation expanded. But there were rules… An order within the chaos, and a chaos within the order…” his mother used to start.

“I’ll tell you a story,” Stiles says to Derek. He rubs the fingertips of his right hand, all six of them, against the wrinkles in his jeans. Derek blinks up at him, a tired pinched look around his eyes. 

“Long, long ago… There was a thought, an emotion, an idea. From this thought, from this emotion, from this idea sprung out all of creation… The light, the spirit, the matter. Order within chaos and chaos within order. Tied together, like the serpent after its own tail.”

Stiles’ mother’s eyes were blue. Stiles used to think she was made out of the sky. He’d tried to think of a story for his mother, but he was too young, and too hectic in his mind. His thoughts would run around in spirals, circles, cycles, and so much of the world would catch his temporary attention. But she was made out of the sky. Regardless of the color of her eyes. 

She used to tell him stories. It probably started when he was a baby. She turned everything into a story. A glimpse. An understanding. A puzzle. An explanation. An enigma. A conclusion. An eternity. Everything animate and inanimate had its beginning even if it started with an ending. 

“And the princess’ heart was so lonely it reached out into the space and across time, until it touched another lonely heart. And that lonely heart, a heart of ice and fear and terror, came to her, mad and terrified. But the princess was happy; there was now a reflection of her heart, a companion, a deep green creature with eyes golden and fiery unlike its heart. And her acceptance of the loneliness conquered the dragon, and she hid him in her dungeon because nobody should ever see her heart.”

Stiles’ mother used to tell him stories until she couldn’t anymore. 

“The dragon, a simple creature, was fed and nurtured by the princess. She sang to the dragon. She washed its scales in the pleasantly cold safety of the dungeon. She told the dragon all of her thoughts, all of her worries, and all of her fears. Who else could listen to the truth, but her own heart? And the dragon grumbled, and sighed, and rumbled with her joys and with her sadness, turning its giant head to the left when in agreement, and to the right when confused, scratching the cement floor with his powerful claws. ”

Stiles’ mother used to tell him stories, long and short ones. Deep and shallow ones. Sad and happy ones, joyfully morose ones and sadly happy ones. She’d weave the words out of seemingly nowhere, always a new one unless Stiles wanted an old one retold. Threads of possibilities, threads of probabilities, threads of real and imagined merging until the real and the fantasy seemed as one. And if one looked closely enough, listened carefully, felt the story, they’d find a part of themselves within it, around it, reaching out of it. 

“One day, when the princess was sleeping in her chambers, a servant came across the dungeon and ran away when a golden eye blinked open through the darkness of the cell. The servant ran until a prince from a distant land visiting the kingdom in search for adventure, for achievement, for conquering and glory stopped the frightened man. And the prince’s eyes widened at the news of a monster in the dungeons. There is his chance, there is his adventure, and there is his prestige to be acknowledged. A fight against a monster! He’s never seen a monster up close, the prince thought.”

Stiles' mother got sicker and sicker over months. Sometimes she’d start a story only to forget she even started it. She’d stare off into the distance, as if the threads of the stories were pulling away from her as the sickness pushed inside her mind. She’d smile after a while, the nothingness in her eyes overcome with a quick resolution. “Let’s go visit your father, Stiles,” she would wave at the neighbors even though they we’re not outside as they walked to the station. 

“And the dragon thought the princess knew… And it scratched and scratched the dungeon’s cement floors until the last of the gold in the dragon’s eyes dimmed as the prince took his sword out of the emerald flesh. Now he has glory, it’s in the crimson blood on his royal sword, the prince thought. Now he’s someone. Now he’s worthy. Now he’s not just a title. Now he’s more than the slay flesh beneath his boots. Because princes were made to save kingdoms… The princes were made to rule. So it was that the elders always taught him. But the princess didn’t know. The story about the monster, dead in the dungeons, and the foreign brave prince who fought and rescued the land reaches her soon enough.”

Stiles’ mother ended up in the hospital after several months of unsuccessful medication. She was tired more often than not, and her eyes rarely recognized anything or anyone in her surroundings. Stiles was terrified. But he stayed with her as much as it’s allowed. Sometimes, most of the time, he avoided looking at her eyes. 

“The prince is awarded a piece of land. He smiles as he greets the highest of the advisers to the king. He smiles as he greets the princess. Surely, they would be a perfect match now. He has saved her kingdom. He has saved her. He saved the land from the hideous monster, an abomination hidden in the dungeons. And princess smiles too. She smiles as she stands and watches the feast in the prince’s honor. She smiles as her father arranges the marriage between the valiant prince and herself. She smiles and means it. She smiles as the prince dances with her. She smiles and thinks, “You killed my heart, and I’ll kill yours.” And the prince smiles; well he has the most beautiful princess in the world by his side, and many monsters outside in the world to conquer. But the poor, thoughtless prince never was taught that while princes might have been made to save kingdoms, they were not made to save queendoms. So they dance, the princess who hid her heart from herself and paid for it, and the prince who no matter how many times slays a monster will never see the monster within until it’s too late.”

Once upon a time, there was a frightened little boy called Stiles. Loss used to scare him like it scares a lot of little boys and little girls, like it scares many grown little men and grown little women. But then Stiles remembered stories, and he remembered the skies, and he remembered the silent dragons in people’s unconscious dungeons, and the threads between us all, so he looked at his mother’s lost gaze in a hospital bed, took her hand into his and said, “Let me tell you a story.”

And now, Stiles counts his fingers and brushes the sweat drops on Derek’s forehead, and says, “Aeons ago, there was a Goddess from which all of life came forth. And from her spirit, the threads of one universe, one thought, and one emotion entwined into different worlds. And some, in some of those worlds, forgot her. They forgot the source, and they forgot who and what they were, and for many ages their memory became filled with nothing but pain. And the pain was born into the one verse, one thought, one emotion, one light. And with creation suffering, she who became the world suffered as well. But such is the price for free choice, and one day the worlds will remember what they were and are and forever will be. All they had to do was choose to remember.”

Derek’s eyes are closed, and his breathing is getting shallower as the dream flow starts to dissipate. “What was it?” Derek asks. “The verse, the thought, the emotion…”

Stiles feels the pull, knows he’s about to awaken, so he squeezes Derek’s shoulder, leans closer and whispers, “Love was.”


End file.
